Berkeley Lab Search

On Thursday, August 17, Centennial Drive will be restricted to one lane near the Strawberry Canyon Recreational Area for up to two hours in the early afternoon. Maintenance work is being performed on the north side of the road. Traffic will be directed by flaggers, who will allow both directions of traffic to alternate in a shared lane. Anticipate short delays.

Roughly 5,500 to 6,000 incoming undergraduates and their families will be making their way through the streets of Berkeley to their residence halls (to check in, unload belongings, and visit the campus) on Monday, August 14. More>

On October 3, the Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative at UC Berkeley will host a combined North and South American continental semifinal of the Smogathon 2017 Global Edition, a worldwide competition for projects that have the potential to fight air pollution with innovative science and technology. Go here to learn more. Applications are due by August 15.

The Lab’s Carl Haber (Physics) and Earl Cornell (Engineering) are applying a technology they developed that uses a unique camera instead of phonographic needles to extract audio from century-old wax cylinder recordings of Native American speakers from around California. More>

Paul Alivisatos, an internationally renowned chemist and UC Berkeley’s vice chancellor for research, has been chosen to serve as the campus’s new executive vice chancellor and provost, effective immediately. Alivisatos is a Berkeley Lab materials scientist and former Lab director. More>

The American Chemical Society honored George Pimentel’s development of the Mars Infrared Spectrometer with a plaque in the lobby of UC Berkeley’s Pimentel Hall. The spectrometers were used on the NASA spacecrafts Mariner 6 and 7. In addition to being an associate director at the Lab, Pimentel was a longtime Cal professor, teaching freshman chemistry until just before he died in 1989. More>

Making fuel from sunlight, increasing the resiliency of urban waterfronts, and developing low-cost batteries for energy storage are among the efforts by UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab researchers to create solutions for energy efficiency, sustainability, and the environment. Those three endeavors were just a few of the projects presented earlier this month at the Cal Future Forum. More>

Vetter, with the Nuclear Science Division, is a frequent visitor to the Fukushima Prefecture, site of one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents. He founded the Institute for Resilient Communities to help authorities better communicate critical scientific information following disasters. Chemical Sciences’ Rebecca Abergel is the institute’s deputy director. More>

A panel of speakers — including Junko Yano of the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis — will look at the environmental implications of carbon fixation, policy measures for mitigating the effects of carbon emissions, and engineering approaches to using photosynthesis for climate remediation. More>